A Regina memorial honouring local soldiers who've fought in past wars has been vandalized: the word penis was spray-painted on the east side of the cenotaph.

The apparent vandal made the mark using black spray paint.

Riley Meloche first noticed the scrawled paint on Tuesday.

"I don't know why someone would do that. It makes no sense to me. It's brutal," he said. "I've seen graffiti on this thing before and it just blows my mind that someone can be that disrespectful."

Meloche said he has no personal connection to the cenotaph, but said that "as a human being, and someone who I think is mildly respectful of things, that's out of control."

Joyce Brinda said she saw graffiti recently cleaned off the cenotaph.

"They're putting it on everything now. It's sickening," she said.

City crews were cleaning the paint off of the cenotaph by late morning on Wednesday.

The City of Regina said the last time such an incident occurred was in May of this year.